Why your girlfriends could be the key to getting your finances sorted.

When you’ve committed to saving for a house/car/Louis Vuitton bag it’s all up to you to stay focused on your goals to keep your spending on track, right? Well, yes, but the company you keep could actually play a bigger role than you think. Jen Sincero, author of ‘You are a Badass at Making Money’, shares how your friends can help – and hinder – your efforts to reach your money goals.

They boost your energy.

Think about how you feel after you hear a particularly inspiring speaker give a talk, or hang out with a friend who’s on fire with his business and who bats brilliant ideas back and forth with you over beers on his deck or when you’re just generally having a blast doing what you love with awesome people – it’s like you could bench-press a Buick you’re so pumped up.

And think about how you feel when you’re around people who complain about what a d**k their boss is or how impossible it is to find a good babysitter or how screwed we all are because Social Security will be gone by the time we need it. It’s like they just emptied a hamper full of wet socks onto your lap. We are energetic creatures, and when you’ve made the commitment to change your life and to get rich, one of the most important things you can do is be militant about the types of energy you subject yourself to. Surround yourself with people whose energy lights you up and it will empower you to get rich.

They strengthen your faith.

Being around confident, wealth-positive people whom you respect gives you permission to believe there is abundance available to you too. No matter how impossible a situation may seem, a super-confident person who believes in something without a doubt is a force of nature that can inspire you to reach great heights.

I used to go backpacking with these friends of mine who would take me out into the middle of nowhere in the wilderness areas of southeast Utah on a regular basis. How they knew where the hell they were going and how to get us back was an utter mystery to me. We’d set off through a canyon, walk out onto a huge expanse of sand, climb over endless boulders, hike up a river, pick our way through a wash, and then five days later, boink, we’d pop out right where the car was parked.

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On one of these trips we hired a lady who ran a jeep operation to drop us off at the mouth of some canyon. When we met her at her garage she told us there was a big hatching of rattlesnakes in the very canyon we were going into, and that the place was crawling with them. My friends are listening to her, completely unfazed, as they load their things into the jeep. I’m squirming as if I’m watching a horror movie and the soon-to-be victim doesn’t realise that the call is coming from inside the house. She said rattlesnakes! Hatched! Lots of them! In our canyon! This woman knew some shit, she was as craggy and leathery as the canyon walls themselves, but my friends just let her finish her little snake story, as if having to endure her describe the cute thing her dog did that morning, before asking her if there was any water to be had down there or would we have to carry our own in?

I totally trusted my friends and had complete faith in them, so if they weren’t scared of spending their last moments on Earth with rattlesnake venom pulsing through their veins, I wasn’t scared. And off my faith and I leapt into the canyon behind them, emerging six days later with nary a bite nor a rattlesnake sighting.

Surround yourself with people who have unwavering faith in themselves, in you, and in our abundant Universe and it will help you take the giant leaps you need to take to get yourself rich.

They up your game.

If you’re around people who are making money in great and joyful ways, you’ll not only see what’s possible for you, but you’ll be motivated to push yourself. If you’re around people who are sitting on the couch all day, you’ll feel like a hero for getting your laundry done.

Healthy competition is a wonderful thing. Surround yourself with people who are bringing their A game and you will want to bring your A game too.

They make you mightier.

There’s a great story about an army that’s about to cross a bridge, and the captain tells his soldiers to walk out of step with one another because if they’re all in sync, the momentum will make the bridge do that crazy bendy thing that bridges do right before they snap. People in motion moving together in a group create a massive force strong enough to rip a bridge in half. Coming together with kick-ass people and sharing your resources, your ideas, your connections, your know-how, your enthusiasm, and your snacks can take you all much further and way faster than if you were working on your own. Surround yourself with generous, creative, big thinkers and you’ll maximise your opportunities to get rich.

They celebrate who you are.

Everyone talks about how you know who your true friends are when you’re desperate and things really bottom out. But I want to send a shout-out to the friends who stick by you when you’re kicking ass. When you’re stuck in the suckhole and people come to your rescue, they get the opportunity to feel helpful, to save the day, to be a hero.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful, essential thing to take care of one another, and I’m hugely grateful to everyone who’s ever helped me when I was in the dumps, but I think more needs to be said about the friends who selflessly cheer you on when you’re totally killing it. Especially if they’re not doing so great themselves. Your success forces them to look at their life and think about what they could do differently, which usually makes people fairly grouchy. Surround yourself with people who have your back and celebrate your successes no matter what.

Extracted from You Are A Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero (Hachette Australia), available in paperback ($29.99) and ebook ($16.99).